Senators Blast Canadian Border Security

Sept. 27, 2007 — -- Senators are calling for greater security along the Canada-U.S. border after a U.S. government investigation said it would be easy to smuggle radioactive materials and other contraband across the northern border.

The independent Government Accountability Office told Congress Thursday it sent investigators to test security along the border was able to easily simulate the cross-border movement of radioactive materials and other contraband with no border patrol agents anywhere in sight.

"Our work clearly shows substantial vulnerabilities in the northern border to terrorists or criminals entering the U.S. undetected," Gregory Kutz, the GAO's managing director of special investigations, told members of the Senate Finance Committee.

GAO testimony suggested the U.S. border with Canada is disproportionately short-staffed, drastically underprotected, and disturbingly vulnerable to terrorists.

"I am quite alarmed at how easy it is to get across the border," said Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., as he heard testimony from officials from the GAO and the Department of Homeland Security.

However, Ronald Colburn, deputy chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, said he was not surprised by the report.

"We agree with the GAO's findings," he said. "The border is not as secure as it should be."

Colburn said part of the reason GAO investigators could easily cross an unmanned stretch of the Canada-U.S. border was that his agency's resources are used to protect the most vulnerable areas of the American border -- the Mexico border. Colburn said that is where 99 percent of illegal border activity takes place.

However, GAO investigators were able to easily cross the Mexican border as well, although it was the serious understaffing at the northern border that raised the ire of senators during the hearing.

At one location on the Canadian border, the U.S. Border Patrol was alerted to GAO activities through a citizen's tip, but agents were unable to find the GAO investigators.

The GAO said it found several ports of entry that had posted daytime hours and were simply left unstaffed overnight.